Contagious

“Holy s.h.i.+t,” Dew said. “That’s it. It’s f.u.c.king airborne.”

“Wind-borne,” Margaret said.

“Wind-borne, right,” Dew said. “So what about the other hosts that are outside of this pattern?”

“Could be a number of things,” Margaret said. “They could have pa.s.sed through the wind curve at just the right time, could have been another... I don’t know... another gust that carried the spores to other areas. This curve doesn’t account for everyone, but it accounts for half of them. It’s statistically significant, no question.”

Clarence turned in his chair to face her. “But what does this really tell us? I mean, wind can blow all over.”

Perry spoke before Margaret could. “It gives us a projection based on wind speed and the distance between infection points. From there we can potentially extrapolate a vector path and possibly even a range for potential release-point locations. Combine this data with hosts from the other infection locations, maybe you can reduce the search area for the release point. What Margaret is saying is that Colonel Ogden was right, it’s a satellite. This weather a.n.a.lysis might tell us where to look for it.”

Margaret smiled and nodded at Perry. He winked at her.

“College?” Dew said.

Perry nodded. “College.”

“Perry,” Margaret said, “can we do that here?”

Perry shook his head. “That takes way more computational power. You have simple wind-direction history, sure, but you need to extrapolate that against the distance between infection points, air temperature, humidity... and probably a bunch of other s.h.i.+t I don’t even know. It’s a whole different ball game from what I just showed you.”

“Let’s kick this back to Murray,” Clarence said. “See if he can put it in front of some of his most brilliant minds the nation has to offer.”

“f.u.c.k yes he can,” Dew said. “He’ll have the National Weather Service and climatologists and G.o.d knows what on this faster than you can hum ‘Oh! Susanna.’ ”

Clarence kept staring at Perry. “I might have been wrong about the dumb-jock stereotype,” he said. “You’re pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n smart.”

Perry didn’t look away from his monitor. “Naw, you were right about the stereotype. It just doesn’t apply to football. You have to be smart to be good at football, because it’s complicated.”

He turned and smiled at

Perry turned back to face the monitor.

Clarence shook his head, and Margaret just laughed.

CHELSEA IN CHARGE

Chelsea Jewell slowly woke. Her head hurt real bad. She wanted her mommy.

No, that wasn’t right. She had to watch out for Mommy. Mommy might want to hurt her. Chelsea wanted her daddy. Daddy was still okay.

And yet that wasn’t right, either. She didn’t want her daddy... she wanted to protect her daddy.

She wanted to protect what was inside of Daddy.

Are you awake?

She looked around the room. Where had that voice come from? She couldn’t see anybody.

Are you awake?

“Yeah,” Chelsea said. “Where are you?”

I am very far away.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Then why can I hear you?”

Because you are special. You are the only one there who can hear me.

“Mommy and Daddy can’t hear you?”

Not yet.

“My daddy is sick,” Chelsea said. “So am I. I feel a little better now, but my head hurts real bad, and now my tongue feels all thick and stuff. Mommy scares me real bad. I think she wants to hurt me.”

You don’t need to be afraid of your mommy.

“Are you sure?”

Yes.

Chelsea felt the fear of her mother vanish as if a breeze had blown it away.

Your daddy is not sick. He’s very important.

Chelsea saw visions of something triangular, something that resembled one of her yellow wooden blocks, the one that looked like a little pyramid, except in her vision it was black and moved on strange legs. It was beautiful. It was special. Just like Mommy always called her special.

“Daddy has pretty dollies inside of him,” Chelsea said. “Is that why he’s important?”

That’s right. Daddy has dollies inside of him.

Mommy called Chelsea special, and Mommy had always protected Chelsea.

And now Chelsea would protect Daddy. Daddy, and the dollies.

The closet door opened, spilling light inside.

“Honey,” Mommy said, “what the heck are you doing in here?”

Chelsea blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. She waited for the fear, but it didn’t come. The voice said she didn’t need to be afraid, and she wasn’t.

“Sleeping,” Chelsea said.

“But why in the closet?”

Chelsea shrugged. “I dunno.”

“That’s what your father said. I found him sleeping behind the couch, of all things. Are you guys playing some joke on me?”

Chelsea shook her head.

“Riiiight,” Mommy said. “You both hide somewhere to sleep, and it’s not a joke on me? We’ll just see about that. But enough playing around.

How are you feeling?”

“No so good,” Chelsea said.

Mommy picked Chelsea up and laid her back down on the bed. She put her hand on Chelsea’s forehead. Mommy’s hand felt cool and nice.

“You’re not as hot as you were,” she said. “Do you feel worse or better than before?”

“A little better,” Chelsea said.

Mommy’s brow wrinkled up, and her eyes narrowed.

“Honey, open your mouth,” she said. “Stick out your tongue.”

Chelsea did. Mommy got that worried look on her face.

“Honey, you’ve got blue spots on your tongue. Does your tongue hurt?”

“A little,” Chelsea said.

“Stick it out again. I’ve never seen that before. I don’t like it. I think tomorrow we’re all going to the doctor.”